Hopes and Dreams: My Writing and My Sonshttps://lillian888.wordpress.com
The challenges of maintaining a professional writing career while being a good mother for two special needs sons.Tue, 26 Sep 2017 18:08:24 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngHopes and Dreams: My Writing and My Sonshttps://lillian888.wordpress.com
I’m a Featured Author!https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/im-a-featured-author/
https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/im-a-featured-author/#commentsMon, 25 Sep 2017 07:50:27 +0000http://lillian888.wordpress.com/?p=12007Continue reading →]]>by Lillian Csernica on September 25th, 2017

Thanks to the generosity of Renee Scattergood, I am the featured author in today’s spotlight on her blog. Please do head on over there and take a look. The interview questions were a lot of fun to answer!

This is a very special day for me, dear to my heart for three important reasons.

First, I met my husband of thirty years at the Northern Renaissance Faire where he was playing a pirate aboard the good ship Cardiff Rose, aka the fencing booth. See that tall, dark, handsome fellow in the middle? Bosun’s Mate Christopher Fortune!

Second, my first published romance novel, Ship of Dreams, is a love story between an English Lady and a notorious French pirate. There are sea battles and sword fights and many people talking like pirates in English, French, and Spanish. I had such a good time writing this book!

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Third, I once received a letter to Santa Claus that asked Santa what he thought about pirates. (I volunteer every holiday season at my local post office, replying to the letters the local kids write to Santa Claus.) This took some thinking on my part. Hollywood has done a lot to romanticize what pirates were and what they did. Speaking on behalf of Santa Claus, I had to strike a balance between truth and a child’s sense of adventure.

In the letter from Santa I said that the real pirates of history weren’t very nice people. They tended to get a lot of coal in their stockings. Santa Claus does believe that pretending to be a pirate can be a lot of fun. You find out amazing things about sailing ships, life at sea, and all the different kinds of treasure pirates captured.

The boy who wrote this letter to Santa Claus happened to live in my neighborhood. The next time I crossed paths with his mother, she told me all about how excited her son had been to get a reply from Santa himself. She thought the answers to the pirate questions were just right. I love it when I hear how much the kids enjoy their letters!

]]>https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/talk-like-a-pirate-day/feed/1lillian888ChristopherFortune5102oqewu2bl82500aa41ec88574e56bbf7d1276148c-pirate-images-father-christmas5 Things You May Not Know About Having Multiple Children with Special Needshttps://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-having-multiple-children-with-special-needs/
https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-having-multiple-children-with-special-needs/#commentsThu, 14 Sep 2017 19:47:35 +0000http://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/14/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-having-multiple-children-with-special-needs/Special Needs Essentials Blog: We’re happy to introduce a new gust blogger to the Special Needs Essentials community, Jenn from Positive Parenting Specialized. We are glad to have her unique perspective on our blog! Hi there, I’m…]]>

I have just discovered Jenn and her amazing family. As a mother with more than one child who has special needs, I know how complicated it can be to just get through the day. To me, Jenn is a superhero. Read on and you’ll see why.

We’re happy to introduce a new gust blogger to the Special Needs Essentials community, Jenn from Positive Parenting Specialized. We are glad to have her unique perspective on our blog!

Hi there, I’m Jenn, a single mom to a seventeen year old with Global Depression, a fifteen year old with Asperger’s Syndrome (and a hand full of co-morbid diagnosis), a 10 year old with autism, Type 1 Diabetes, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and a 7 year old fireball with Disruptive Behavior Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, Learning Challenges, and Anxiety Disorder. I am in my forties and have started blogging to try to support the kids and myself. I love being a work from home mom, praying often that it stays this way.

Life with four children who all have unique challenges might be surprising. Maybe some of these points are “No Brainers.” See for yourself!

This isn’t just an Instagram aesthetic. It’s actually really good advice for us. If you’re unfamiliar with self-care, it is the simple act of caring for ourselves. We deserve it, not because it makes us better for others or for our lecturers or for our flatmates, but because it makes us healthier for ourselves. […]

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how writers need to get out of their comfort zones. Apparently better writing is achieved once we leave our comfort zones and venture out into the wild terrain of ideas that scare the daylights out of us.

I’m not talking about horror per se. There are subjects that we all find distressing. The kind of material that people these days label with trigger warnings. Facts and stories and ideas which will hit us where we live, push on old bruises, maybe bring fresh pain to old scars. Such subjects are intensely painful and could be trauma triggers.

A trauma trigger is an experience that causes someone to recall a previous traumatic memory, although the trigger itself need not be frightening or traumatic and can be indirectly or superficially reminiscent of an earlier traumatic incident.

(Relevant tangent: If you’re interested in the debate about trigger warnings, I recommend reading The Trigger Warning Myth.)

While I can appreciate the need to test one’s boundaries and stretch one’s literary muscles, I do have two problems with all of these articles urging writers to get out of their comfort zones.

The people giving this advice have no idea what’s outside my comfort zone. I might have some very good reasons for staying in it.

There’s a crucial piece of information missing. Maybe it’s just the debate team in me, but I don’t see anybody defining the term “comfort zone.” (That’s why I keep linking to the definition every single time I use that phrase.) To me the proper starting point is figuring out precisely where our comfort zones begin and end. Once that’s mapped out, we know where to find terra incognita. We can point to the spot that says “Here there be dragons!”

Time for painful honesty. For years now people have told me I should write about my experiences with my older son Michael. Bed rest in the hospital. The terror of the day he had to be delivered via emergency C-section. Every day and night of the three and a half months he remained in the hospital, coming close to dying time and time again.

Why don’t I write about that? Simple. I’ve been too busy living it. For most of Michael’s twenty-one years on this planet, my husband and I have considered it a good week if no medical emergency forced us to call 911.

Same with John. Sure, I could write about the day he got out the front door while I was changing Michael’s diaper. I had to dash out after him before he made it to the busy street. I tore my right calf muscle doing so. Then I still had to get up and run after him. I wound up in the ER that night, and came home on crutches. That added a whole new layer of difficulty to being primary caregiver for two special needs children.

Miscarriage. Babies dying. Whether or not to turn off the life support.

Wondering if I’ll ever know the joys of being a grandmother.

Who will look after my boys once I’m dead.

And a few other matters that I’m not ready to talk about to anybody, even myself.

Yes, I agree that “growing our comfort zones” is a worthwhile goal. I also think people who dish out such advice should be mindful of the dangers of doing so. These are hard times. Telling people to go rummaging around in the darker corners of their psyches for really juicy writing material is not a smart or a responsible thing to do.

For me, getting my own car again was a big step outside my comfort zone. I didn’t drive for years because of a Gordian knot of anxieties surrounding the subject of driving. Now I have a car. Now I drive all the time. Oh look, here I am writing about it!

For once I don’t mean to sound sarcastic. You decide when and if you want to step outside of your comfort zone. You decide just how far, and how often. It’s good to tell the stories that only you can tell. It’s more important to respect your own pain and your own right to privacy. You’ll know when the time is right.

For some excellent thoughts on why there’s nothing wrong with staying in your comfort zone, go see what Darius Foroux has to say.

]]>https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/the-comfort-zone-are-you-in-or-out/feed/6lillian888170727083009get-out-of-comfort-zone10707172_1544219895792929_1616910319_aspeak-your-truth-heart-300x262Technologyhttps://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/technology/
https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/technology/#commentsFri, 01 Sep 2017 07:14:58 +0000http://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/technology/Tabula Candida: I have enough trouble driving a regular car that the last thing I want is to add a third dimension to that.]]>

You’ve got two or more ideas in your head, fighting for your attention, demanding to be written.

It happens.

What do you do? How do you prioritize them? Maybe you really can write more than one story at once, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Everybody’s got a process. It’s good to know and respect your own. If you’re still somewhat new to writing narrative fiction, you might want to concentrate on one story at a time.

But again, which one?

The answer depends on knowing exactly what you want.

Are you after the money? Go with the idea that’s most marketable.

Are you out to make a statement or address an issue? Go with the idea that really sets your heart on fire, be it with anger, grief, or joy.

Do you have what seems like a really cool idea but you’re all caught up in the worldbuilding and you can’t seem to make the characters behave and there’s all this research? Let that one sit. It sounds like it might be a novel. If you don’t have enough experience yet from writing short stories, writing a novel might be biting off more than you can chew. Do I know this from personal experience? Oh yes.

When you get to the stage where you see ideas everywhere, that’s when you have to adjust your own settings as a writer. By doing so, you’ll be able to concentrate on the ideas that show up most strongly on the radar of your imagination.

How do you adjust those settings? Ask yourself these questions:

Do you have a deadline to meet? If there’s a submission window open and it has a firm deadline, that movies it up the priority list.

Is the idea time-sensitive? Seasonal themes often require submitting the story several months in advance, so keep an eye on guideline updates.

Do you have a particular word limit in mind? It might seem obvious to think flash fiction can be written in a shorter time frame than a novella. Shorter is often harder, because every word has to do that much more work. If you have more than one work-in-progress, the time factor is an important consideration.

What else could you be doing instead of developing Idea A into a story? Maybe Idea B would yield more in the way of benefits long term.

If you want your writing to be more than a few random thoughts jotted in a personal journal while sipping a latte in the local coffeehouse, then this kind of analysis is very important. It may seem too cold and clinical to evaluate a creative effort in these terms, but hey, life is short. Make hay while the sun shines or the storms will come and all that hay will rot in the field. All that opportunity will be lost.

Regardless of which priority you choose, once you have settled on a project, there is one ironclad rule:

An eavesdropper was someone who stands at the eavesdrop (where the water drops, i.e., next to the house) so as to hear what is said within. The PBS documentaries, Inside the Court of Henry VIII (April 8, 2015)[3] and Secrets of Henry VIII’s Palace (June 30, 2013) include segments that display and discuss “eavedrops”, carved wooden figures Henry VIII had built into the eaves (overhanging edges of the beams in the ceiling) of Hampton Court to discourage unwanted gossip or dissension from the King’s wishes and rule, to foment paranoia and fear,[4] and demonstrate that everything said there was being overheard; literally, that the walls had ears.[5]

I recently made the observation that cell phones have taken all the fun out of eavesdropping. When I said this, I was referring to texting. People have all kinds of conversations that people nearby can’t overhear, aside from the clicking of the keyboard.

A friend of mine pointed out that I was quite mistaken. He lives in San Francisco and makes frequent use of public transit. This gives him the opportunity to listen in on the amazing variety of really personal subjects people discuss when making actual calls on their cell phones.

Good point! This makes me feel better, even though most of the conversations I do overhear aren’t worth the time or attention.

Eavesdropping is like panning for gold. You have to sift through a lot of mud before you see the gleam of real treasure. That one gleam can spark an idea that makes all that mud worthwhile.

When my younger son was little, he did what all little kids do, which is eat with his hands. At that time we had four cats in the house. Put these two facts together, and you get the day I heard myself say:

“Don’t get the cat sticky!”

People say the most absurd things, especially when they’re trying to be clever. I was sitting in the local Italian bakery on Sunday, writing in my journal while I ate a Lobster Tail. (I know, it’s not on my diet. I was celebrating my latest sale of a short story.) Two women came in and studied the goodies in the bakery cases. One said,

“The gelato is good, but the pastries are just a little too Italian for me.”

Sorry? What? If she didn’t like Italian pastries, why on earth had she come to an Italian bakery? Questions like this can get your imagination fired up. I could brainstorm ten crazy answers to that question. At least one might be worth building into a new story.

One of the greatest proofs of the value of eavesdropping is Harlan Ellison‘s short story Jeffty is Five. Mr. Ellison has said that the title came from a conversation he overheard. The actual statement was, “Jeff is fine. He’s always fine.” By hearing it as “Jeff is five. He’s always five.”, Mr. Ellison found the seed of an idea. It flowered into a story that went on to win the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and a nomination for the World Fantasy Award.

]]>https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/all-writers-need-this-skill/feed/9lillian888eavesdropping40409707-gold-digger-at-work-from-the-wild-west93a3643e7c4472efdbaf5bbdcb83bc14-minions-despicable-me-funny-minionReblog: About Ghosts and Things that Go Bumphttps://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/about-ghosts-and-things-that-go-bump/
https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/about-ghosts-and-things-that-go-bump/#commentsSun, 20 Aug 2017 02:23:31 +0000http://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/about-ghosts-and-things-that-go-bump/Book 'Em, Jan O: I’ve written two collections of ghost stories. (“Death Be Not Loud” and “Rest In Fleece,” at amazon)as well as a nonfiction book on the subject called “About Ghosts: A Useful Handbook,” and a…]]>

I love a good ghost story. The women writers of the turn of the century such as J.H. Riddell, Elizabeth Bowen, and Mrs. Gaskell created many of the best. This post is an excellent resource for those of us who enjoy writing ghost stories!

I’ve written two collections of ghost stories. (“Death Be Not Loud” and “Rest In Fleece,” at amazon)as well as a nonfiction book on the subject called “About Ghosts: A Useful Handbook,” and a collection of funny/irreverent haiku called”It’s Your Funeral: Dead Funny Haiku.” I teach seminars occasionally about the spirituality of the ghost story, and about the paranormal in literature. The subject matter is intriguing in many ways:

We speculate about the Other Side, and there are countless theories about it.

Our fear of the unknown.

So much is written off as “wives tales” or legend, but actually, running up against ghosts, hauntings, ESP, voodoo, the Bermuda Triangle, and more, happens to people quite often. Working as a priest and as a chaplain I heard countless stories from so many individuals: and prior to that, as a columnist, I interviewed those who had had supernatural, inexplicable experiences.

]]>https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/about-ghosts-and-things-that-go-bump/feed/2lillian888Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore – New on the Shelves – The Fright Factory by Lillian Csernicahttps://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/sallys-cafe-and-bookstore-new-on-the-shelves-the-fright-factory-by-lillian-csernica/
https://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/sallys-cafe-and-bookstore-new-on-the-shelves-the-fright-factory-by-lillian-csernica/#commentsThu, 17 Aug 2017 20:37:58 +0000http://lillian888.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/sallys-cafe-and-bookstore-new-on-the-shelves-the-fright-factory-by-lillian-csernica/Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life: About The Fright FactoryHorror can be anything from the most elegant ghost story to the total freak-out of a bloodthirsty serial killer. The Fright Factory can show you how…]]>

If you haven’t visited Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore, I recommend doing so. There are many talented authors and lots of titles to browse!

About The Fright FactoryHorror can be anything from the most elegant ghost story to the total freak-out of a bloodthirsty serial killer. The Fright Factory can show you how to make the most of your story ideas. Choose the best setting. Build a better monster Learn the fine art of creating suspense! It’s all here, including an essential list of the worst horror cliches no editor wants to see.A review for the book on AmazonA must read! By Philip and Melissa Knight-Fitzgerald on May 20, 2015